Tackling carbon emissions should be more than an afterthought

Ensuring proper insulation in existing housing stock would be a good way to tackle carbon emissions. Photograph: Graham Turner

With G20 leaders meeting in London this week, debate continues to centre on next steps in tackling global recession. But for all the talk in the lead-up to the summit about a shift towards a low carbon economy, the pace of change looks incremental at best.

Unfortunately, tackling carbon emissions continues to be seen as an additional but necessary burden to economic growth, rather than being recognised as a sustainable solution to stimulating economic activity in these troubled times.

So why housing? It's not rocket science. Existing homes are responsible for 27% of the UK's total carbon emissions. 85% of today's homes will be around in 2050 and by then we will need to have cut our carbon emissions by 80%. Put simply, if we don't tackle housing we will fall short. The good news is that we also have the technology and know how to take action and reduce housing emissions.

That is why we have called for measures making retrofitting our housing stock a key priority for the government in the forthcoming budget.

What we need now is a combination of leadership and action. The government needs to set out a range of new incentives of sufficient scale, ambition and urgency to deliver the prime minister's green new deal.

So how do we do this? There is a massive potential to unlock further large-scale investment in the UK's existing housing stock from home owners and landlords. To do that, the government needs to provide incentives for action on carbon saving, and make investment possible by increasing support and enabling easy access to capital to pay for measures. Other incentives, and support for new financing arrangements for retrofitting measures, are also essential.

Fiscal measures we would like the government to take include tax incentives (such as stamp duty or council tax rebates), a cut in VAT on property refurbishment, low interest rate loans, and grants to stimulate significant additional spending on domestic energy efficiency in the UK's housing stock.

Experience from other countries, most notably Germany, shows that this kind of investment in the environmental performance of the existing stock also acts as a real boost for jobs within the green economy. At a time when unemployment is rising this could also provide a much wider and sustainable social and economic dividend. It will also help householders significantly reduce their heating bills when many are experiencing tighter budgets and would contribute towards the eradication of fuel poverty.

So, lower carbon emissions, increased skilled employment, the creation and growth of a new value-added part of the economy, reduced energy consumption and lower consumer bills. The benefits seem clear and the case for change overwhelming. The question now is whether the 22 April budget will see fundamental changes for UK PLC, or business as usual.

• Richard Capie is director of policy and practice, Chartered Institute of Housing; Colin Butfield is head of camapigns at WWF-UK and is chair of the existing homes alliance

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